


the water smells like you

by enbymegumi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Amortentia, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Love Potion/Spell, Mutual Pining, Temporarily Unrequited Love, and i mean strange magic (2015) the film not strange magic in general, because ben solo may be a ravenclaw but hes a fucking dumbass, professor leia organa is just... carrie fisher, strange magic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22632388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enbymegumi/pseuds/enbymegumi
Summary: “It’s not a penalty for me to make…” he hesitates. “Physical contact!”She drains what must be his entire bottle before handing it back to him and obscenely wiping her mouth.“I never said it was,” she says, picking up her bag and broomstick, making sure to brush bodily past him as she leaves. “I never said I didn’t like it.”Ben is struck dumb, spluttering to himself as he turns to watch her go.She pauses right before she rounds the corner, her voice calling him out of his broken train of thought. “By the way… that was really good water.”“What?” Ben frowns. He’s on the brink of tipping the bottle to his own lips, but he freezes. Horror spreads through his entire body as he smells what little remainder that’s left.It’s lavender.It’s her.It’s the motherfucking Amortentia.---In which Ben Solo, Ravenclaw dumbass, brews the perfect batch of the strongest love potion in the wizarding world, but accidentally feeds it to his one (1) crush. Adorable panic ensues.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Rose Tico, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 40
Kudos: 376





	the water smells like you

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, you have no fucking idea how liberating it is to use modern swear words rather than "kriff" and "karking"
> 
> second of all, WELCOME TO BABY'S FIRST HARRY POTTER AU FIC,, i do have more planned, but i will probably write it after i finish tsarito. i blurted this out within a day so i thought might as well post it now.
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

Amortentia.

The most powerful, dangerous love potion in the world.

Some say it sparks infatuation and obsession within the drinker, imitating a disturbing, false idea of love that can never be broken. Others say that it is thoroughly ineffective if the drinker is already in love with someone else, true love being the one and only antidote to the potion.

Neither of these perceptions are true, as they are commonly made by students who do not pay attention in Potions class.

Ben Solo isn’t one of those students. Or at least, he tries not to be. As a Ravenclaw upholding his values, and with two of his family members being teachers at Hogwarts, he knows better than to be doodling on his textbook or conjuring bubbles absent-mindedly with his wand.

Like Rey Niima is doing now.

He watches her silently from the back of the class, through the various coloured smokes and aromas wafting from a dozen different cauldrons, as she draws a V-shape with a flick of her wand, sending another bout of iridescent bubbles towards Professor Maul.

“The Love Potion has no antidote, at least until it wears off,” Maul is explaining. “No one is immune to it-”

He says something else, but hardly anyone pays attention as Rey’s bubbles fly a little too far out of reach and begin flanking Maul so he looks like he’d just emerged from a bubble bath. The crown of little horns on his head burst a few of them, and the class indulges in a rancorous cackle. Ben bites back a smile as Rey catches his eye from across the dungeon and shoots him a _don’t you dare judge me_ face.

It’s always been like this between them. Ever since she’d hexed him to all fuck during their first duel. They’d been third years, and she’d witnessed him stomping on a bowtruckle in a temper after Care of Magical Creatures. She’d screamed at him, challenged him to a fight, and left him dumbfounded, bleeding profusely from the nose in the snowy forest.

They’d both gotten detention together for a week, but until now, four years later, he could never take his eyes off her.

So on second thought, it’s probably true that he hasn’t been paying attention in class as much as he should have. It’s probably why he finds himself in his mother’s office more often these days.

“Amortentia also possesses the scent of what you find most tempting,” Maul says through gritted teeth, as he whips out his wand and disintegrates the rest of the bubbles. He glares at Rey. “In my case, it’s snapping Miss Niima’s wand in half and deducting twenty points from Hufflepuff.”

The class shuts up. Rey’s face flushes red as she mumbles, “Sorry, Professor,” and slowly turns back to her work station.

“Now that we’ve got this mess cleaned up,” Maul says. “You will all spend the next hour recreating the perfect batch of Amortentia per my instructions. The best batch may be taken home as a trophy for your efforts.”

With that, the class sets to work, and the dungeon is filled with sounds of lit fires, boiling cauldrons and smells that Ben never knew existed.

“I don’t understand why they’d let us keep it,” Rose Tico ponders out loud, as she borrows some of Ben’s powdered moonstone. “Didn’t he say it’s the most dangerous potion in the world?”

“That’s probably why he wants us to keep it,” Ben says darkly. “Waiting for one of us to fuck up and pour it into someone’s pumpkin juice at breakfast.”

“Ah, right,” Rose scoffs. “His reputation for getting students expelled. I forgot.”

Minutes go by. Maul stalks past their table, sniffing everyone’s potions. He blanches at Kaydel Connix’s potion, but stops short between Ben and Rose, both of whom stiffen, bracing for criticism.

“Perfectly adequate,” Maul tells Ben, and Ben is so taken aback he almost inhales the peppermint.

He regards Rose’s potion with a similarly impressed look on his face, but tells her to “Stir anti-clockwise, not clockwise.”

As soon as he stalks off, Rose nudges Ben gleefully. “Bet he’s gonna pick you!”

“Shut up,” Ben mutters, but he feels the tips of his ears glow scarlet. He vacantly notes that his potion is starting to smell a lot like lavender, although he can’t remember what prompted him to enjoy it.

He casts a quick glance through his bangs at Rey, who seems to be side-eyeing him with an air of envy. He can’t help throwing a smug grin her way, and she scowls.

“What do you think you’d use it for?” Rose asks casually, gesturing into his cauldron. “I’d probably use it for my dog, back at home. He loves Paige but he hates me. Do you think it works on animals?”

“No idea,” Ben huffs. He adds the peppermint and peeks up at Rey again as he stirs. He’s inexplicably drawn to the way her hair falls loosely from her eccentric three buns, the way her nose scrunches in concentration as she’s hunched over her book, the way her freckles are accentuated when she blushes.

“I’d never use it on a real person, though.”

_Never._

* * *

Of course, Ben ends up getting the potion, and Rose’s batch comes in second place, earning Ravenclaw a good thirty house points.

Rey’s third place potion gets Hufflepuff five points, but it cancels out because of her bubble fiasco earlier.

She’s still scowling at Ben when Maul deposits the perfect contents of his cauldron into his water bottle (the only storage container he could find on himself at the moment), and when the class smatters a bored set of applause.

“That’s what you get for not paying attention,” Ben murmurs low in her ear as he brushes past her to collect his prize, and the irony of it all makes his victory so much sweeter.

She ambushes him not long after they leave the dungeons. Ben feels a sharp kick at the back of his shin, and when he turns around, he’s shoved in the chest so he goes stumbling backwards into a wall.

He looks down, coolly, into the face of a very vexed Rey Niima. She tilts her face upwards, so her nose is a mere, scant inches away from his. Inciting a challenge.

_Oh,_ how he loves this.

“Angry, are we?” Ben quirks an eyebrow at her. “I won fair and square.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” She fakes a pout. “Considering you couldn’t keep your eyes off me half the entire lesson.”

_Shit._ “I don’t know what you’re-”

Rey smirks. “I wonder if you can say the same thing about Quidditch practice later on.”

For a split second, she leans in closer, and he can feel her breath on his lips, her nose against his, and then she abruptly pulls away and heads down the nearest staircase.

Oh, yeah. The current numbness he feels in his legs definitely has nothing to do with the kick she’d given him. Ben swears under his breath, and heads off to the Ravenclaw Tower to fetch his Quidditch gear and his broom.

* * *

That’s what he hates about Rey. The girl’s an utter mystery. Or at least their dynamic is. It’s always a puzzle he’s supposed to solve, a game he’s supposed to play. But every once in a while, when she listens to him and gives him some form of solace as he rips up another one of his father’s letters, or when he holds her every time she cries on Christmas Eve because her parents never want her home, the game gets a lot more personal.

Usually all he wants is to beat her at, well, pretty much everything. But other times, all he wants is to know what _she_ really wants. Sometimes the desire is what kills him more than losing to her does.

Like now - he’s hovering twenty feet in the air, mounted on his Silencer VIII, squinting against the blazing sun for the Snitch, wherever the fuck that little golden shit is - when a Bludger comes flying at his face. He probably would have broken his nose again, if he hadn’t swerved at the very last minute.

It shoots past his face, and when he steadies himself again, probably to shout at the person who beat it at him, he feels a tug on the half-up bun on the back of his head. He whips around as his hair falls loose, and Rey is draped on her own broomstick, her expression lazy and shit-eating like a wild cat about to pounce.

She twirls her Beater’s bat. “I like your hair better like that.”

“You didn’t have to throw a Bludger at me to tell me,” Ben snaps.

“Oh, that wasn’t why I did that,” Rey says blithely.

She gestures vaguely at thin air, and it takes a moment for Ben to realise that the Snitch is whizzing around a little past an arm’s reach away. He darts forward, but the Snitch zooms right past his ear and veers off in the other direction.

Ben steers his broom around, following it as fast as he can, the wind carding through his liberated hair.

He chases the Snitch underneath the stands, gradually circling the entire pitch, when another Bludger slams into a wooden beam above him and tails him until it starts following his team’s Chaser instead. He catches a glimpse of Rey, her bat in position, a wicked but genuine smile spread across her face. He’s enraptured by that for a second, and almost forgets to duck when she sends yet another Bludger his way.

No, he will not let her win this.

He speeds up, reaching out with one hand towards the Snitch, still flitting away in front of him.

The next Bludger almost breaks his outstretched arm.

The next one blows right past his ear, its passing wind tickling the side of his face.

The next one chases him right out of the stands and towards Rey. The absolute adrenalin of it all makes him break into an uncontrollable grin as well, and she watches him, eyes burning bright as he streaks towards her.

At this point, Ben is almost certain the Snitch knows exactly what it’s doing. It plays a round of hide and seek with him, careening behind Rey’s body so he zigzags around her, trying to snatch it out of the air.

Rey laughs, a sound of pure delight, as she turns around and around with him like a carousel, trying to block him from getting to the Snitch.

“That’s cheating,” Ben points out, but a mirroring laugh works its way from his throat. “You owe me a penalty.”

The Snitch appears just over her shoulder, and without thinking, Ben darts forward to catch it. Instead, his fingers close on thin air and he collides with Rey, their bodies almost flush against each other. He feels her gasp and stiffen beneath him, one hand on the front of his chest to steady herself.

The Snitch buzzes away, as if teasing them.

Ben is distracted by their proximity for a moment, and his heart leaps into his throat when his nose catches in a lock of Rey’s hair. And there it is. That smell.

It’s _lavender._

Before he can react, Rey finally shoves him off and behind her, almost protectively, as she swings her bat violently sideways, knocking away a Bludger that had nearly hit him.

This one could probably have broken his back.

He gapes at her as she rests the head of the bat on her shoulder as nonchalantly as she can, but he knows her well enough to tell that she’s just as shaken as he is.

“Fair and square,” she says, and flies off to the other side of the pitch.

* * *

Finn, the Hufflepuff Seeker, had caught the Snitch in the end, which meant they would have won Ravenclaw by a hundred and fifty points. But by the end of it, everyone is gross and sweaty, but drunk on adrenaline all the same. The teams retreat to the benches, where they’d strewn their belongings.

“That was a good match,” Rey says breathlessly, lying flat on the bench next to Ben’s.

Ben chuckles. “You alright?”

“I’m brilliant,” Rey says, throwing an arm across her face. “I’m just physically incapacitated.”

“Aww,” croons Ben. “Want me to carry you?”

“I’m not the baby in this relationship,” Rey swats half-heartedly at him, and proceeds to disprove her point as she holds out a hand. “Water.”

“You played well today,” he admits, surrendering his water bottle.

“You too,” She smiles at him again. That unadulterated, giddy, dimpled smile. “Although I can’t say the same for your attention span.”

Ben coughs indignantly at that, as Rey uncaps his bottle and takes the world’s biggest swig.

“It’s not a penalty for me to make…” he hesitates. “Physical contact!”

She drains what must be his entire bottle before handing it back to him. She wipes her mouth obscenely.

“I never said it was,” she says, picking up her bag and broomstick, making sure to brush bodily past him as she leaves. “I never said I didn’t like it.”

Ben is struck dumb, spluttering to himself as he turns to watch her go.

She pauses right before she rounds the corner, her voice calling him out of his broken train of thought. “By the way… that was really good water.”

“What?” Ben frowns. He’s on the brink of tipping the bottle to his own lips, but he freezes. Horror spreads through his entire body as he smells what little remainder that’s left.

It’s lavender.

It’s _her._

It’s the motherfucking Amortentia.

* * *

Ben avoids her like the plague for the rest of the day.

He skips Divination despite his inherent fear of Professor Maz, and spends the time frantically milling around in the empty Ravenclaw common room trying to decide what to do.

He could avoid her until the potion wears off, but as he picks up his own water bottle and inspects it, there’s no way it won’t wear off for the next two days. Either way he’ll have to see her at mealtimes in the Great Hall, and if the potion is as strong as Professor Maul had said, Rey will probably be slobbering and lovesick half to hell by now.

With a shout of frustration, Ben hurls the bottle at the wall.

It’s not that he doesn’t want her to love him. He knows, he _knows_ he’s been in love with her ever since she left him lying half-conscious in the snow. Ever since the first time she laid a hand on his when he was distraught about his father’s constant absence, ever since the first time they duelled alongside each other rather than against, the light of the spells dancing in her eyes. Ever since the first time she’d cried into his robes on Christmas Eve, and every secret kiss he’d pressed to the top of her head in his numerous attempts to soothe her.

Having her love him back is his wildest dream, but _forcing_ her to love him is his greatest nightmare. It’s an act he would throw himself into the sun for, and right now he’s getting real fucking close.

Inevitably, Rose peels him out of the common room for dinner, reprimanding him for missing lessons as he tries as hard as he can to keep his mouth shut or make bullshit excuses.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Rose. Being his best friend - his one and only friend, that is - he should probably tell her. But as soon as they reach the Great Hall, the words fall faint on his lips.

He’s too preoccupied with keeping his head down to watch where he’s going, nor to recall that Rey has always been beneath him in height anyway, which results in him walking right into her. He doesn’t know why he thought that would work.

He tries very desperately not to think about the fact that she’d been _waiting for him at the Ravenclaw table._

He tries very desperately not to close his eyes as he braces himself for Amortentia’s ghastly effects.

What doesn’t add up is how _angrily_ she’s looking at him.

“What the _hell_ are you playing at, Solo?” she demands, shaking him by the front of his robes. “My team beats you at Quidditch and you just disappear?”

"Wh- what?" Ben stammers like an idiot.

"I thought your sore losing days were behind you," she says, but then her face softens. Suddenly she’s disappointed, nervous, almost shy. Like she’s telling him a shameful secret. “Are you actually mad at me? Did I cross a line or-”

“No!” he says quickly. “No, of course not.”

She regards him doubtfully for a moment before her features relax, relief flooding her face.

“Great,” she says, punching his arm good-naturedly. “Worrying about you makes me hungrier than usual.”

Ben only stands there, gaping at her as she hurries back to the Hufflepuff table, not knowing whether to focus on the fact that she’s set a line for herself not to cross between them, or the fact that she worries about him.

Or the fact that she’s apparently immune to an entire bottle of Love Potion.

* * *

He bursts into his mother’s office later that night, his water bottle in his hand.

He slams it down onto her desk, as Professor Leia Organa looks unflinchingly up at him from behind her thick rimmed spectacles.

“Smell it,” Ben says roughly. “Tell me it’s not Amortentia.”

“Good evening to you too, Ben,” Leia calmly opens the bottle and sniffs it. “And yes, I can confirm this is Amortentia. Why, have you been drinking it all day without noticing?”

“Not me,” Ben blabbers, and he starts pacing the room. “Re- someone else drank it and it didn’t work on them. Why didn’t it work on them? Professor Maul said no one was immune, so there has to be some kind of mistake.”

Leia watches him with a curious expression. When Ben turns back to her, it’s almost as if she’s trying not to laugh.

“What?” he demands. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Leia holds up her hands in surrender. “I just wonder, were you _trying_ to get this girl to love you?”

“I…” Fuck, he could be expelled for this. “It was an accident.”

Leia only leans back and continues watching him pace, like she’s catching up on her favourite Muggle television programme.

“I mean, she’s indifferent, which means the potion didn’t work. So that either means you have to report this to Headmaster Kenobi so he can fire Maul for teaching jack shit, or I have to look out for premature signs of the potion kicking in, so I can warn her…” He slams his hands on his mother’s desk in a frenzy of panic. “I need to know everything there is to know about Amortentia!”

To his dismay, Leia only smiles and shakes her head at him. “You really do love her, don’t you?”

“That’s- that’s not the point,” Ben says helplessly. “Why aren’t you panicking?” 

“Because I paid attention at school, Ben Solo. It’s common sense,” Leia reaches up and plants a hand on his cheek, her eyes glimmering with amused affection as they meet his. “Why would you ever need a Love Potion for someone who already loves you?”

Time spins and spins and spins and stops. The realisation hits him _hard_. Like a stunning spell, then a jelly legs jinx, then like a hundred doses of Felix Felicis.

“Honestly,” Leia teases. “Considering how awfully slow you are, I’d question her romantic preferences.”

He backs away towards the door, his eyes widening, the cogs in his mind working like crazy, and he runs out of his mother's office without another word.

* * *

Ben speeds down the moving staircases, vaulting over at least five house elves, and running right into Rose outside the library.

“What are you doing?” she cries after him. “It’s 10 o'clock, we have to get back to the dorms!”

He nearly trips on his own robes as he maneuvers himself right past her, lifting both arms in a massive shrug and blurting out the first words that materialise in his mouth, “I fucked up!”

It’s not entirely a lie.

He skids into the library, ignoring the pesky librarian shushing at him like a snake, and weaving between the countless shelves until he reaches the Herbology section.

Where he knows she’ll be.

The aisle is completely empty, except for Rey, leaning against a table and poring over some book about Mandrakes and Nightbloomers like she always is.

From now on, he’ll buy her as many Nightbloomers as she wants.

Rey looks up as he strides purposefully towards her, her brows furrowing, her lips falling open with a wary greeting.

_Perfect._

She makes it as far as “Hello-” before he cups her face, and slants his lips over hers in a bruising kiss.

Rey makes a muffled, surprised noise, their noses bumping as she sucks in a breath. But she won’t pull back now. He knows she won’t, because it’s been four years since he’d fallen in love, and now that he knows she feels the same way, she might have been waiting for this for just as long.

Sure enough, she slides her hand languorously up to his shoulder, reeling him in and kissing him back with equal vigour, her mouth parting even further to grant his tongue entrance. It feels like heaven - the way her chin is pushing against his, coaxing him open, the way his tongue swipes across her bottom lip, the way she nips at him with downright abandon. She tastes like heaven, and he’s a dead man walking but he can’t even bring himself to care.

He pulls back for air, they both do, and they look at each other like they’re the stars in each other’s eyes.

“Amortentia,” they say simultaneously, breathless and heaving.

Ben beams down at her. “You knew.”

“I panicked,” she confesses, but returns his expression as she traces the line of his jaw. “But I knew you were too stupid to mean for it to happen.”

“Yeah?” He slips a hand up the length of her spine, making her shiver, before settling on the nape of her neck. He leans in, his voice deep and husky with want, “Say it. Say you loved me from the very beginning.”

And then Rey’s threading her fingers through his hair, for the second time today, backing him into the opposite shelf.

“I did,” she whispers against his lips as she gets on her tip-toes, chasing his kiss, until he lifts her by the waist and sets her on the table for better leverage.

“I did,” she whispers as he peppers hot, fervent kisses all across her cheeks, trailing down to the freckled column of her throat before returning to her lips, and it feels like coming home.

“I do,” she whispers, and it’s a prelude to something full of hope and destiny and happy endings.

This time when he holds her close like he’s done so many times before, his soul sings like a phoenix reborn.

When the librarian finally finds them, and chases them out with her broom, they’re both sentenced to a week’s worth of detention. But it doesn’t matter.

Neither of them will be paying attention anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on tumblr @shruggyben!!


End file.
